We caught up with Madison just before crossing the border at Strasbourg. I wasn’t sure we would, since she had a good head start. But Moe and I jumped into the car and were zipping along the A8 in no time. We had a shot and I was feeling pretty good until I wasn’t.
“Um…Moe?” I asked.
“We’ll get her. Don’t worry,” he said with his moist eyes pinned to the road.
“We left Grandma and Aaron at the school.”
For a scary second, I thought he was going to slam it into reverse or do a U-turn. He did start doing deep breathing and announced we would be getting off at the next exit.
“We can’t,” I said. “We’ll lose her.”
“Then we’ll lose her. I’m not leaving Janine. She’s been left enough.”
I’m not gonna lie. My heart seized up a little at that, but we were on a job.
“I’ll fix it with her.”
He growled and I got to work. It wasn’t easy. I had a feisty grandmother to contend with and one that had never seen Paris thanks to that grandfather of mine. I noticed that Grandad was getting lower on her list, not higher. Moe was looking good, tracking down Jake and not getting a scratch on the Mercedes in the process. I did everything I could to convince her that they should stay in Stuttgart, pack up, and get on the direct train tomorrow, but she wasn’t buying.
I argued that all her products, i.e. Noxzema, were in the hotel and that woman did not want to be seen in the City of Lights without good skin and lipstick. We didn’t have time to go to the hotel.
“What about all your clothes and your laptop?” Grandma asked. “You’ll look like a mess.”
I didn’t care what I looked like and it was a good thing, too. The wind on the overpass had swirled my hair so bad I looked like a used Q-tip.
“It’s fine. You can pack it up.”
“I’m not missing out on the big get,” she said stubbornly.
That’s when it came to me. “But what about Anton’s cat? We can’t leave the cat.”
That did it. Vanity zero. Fat tuxedo for the win.
“Alright, fine,” she said. “I will get that health certificate thing and pack up Aaron and Isolda.”
“Isolda?” I asked.
“You don’t think she wants to miss out, do you?”
“Guess not. See you tomorrow.” I turned to Moe. “She’s saving the American meow from abandonment in a foreign country.”
“You got lucky,” said Moe, still unhappy, but he whipped out a small black device and booted it up.
“Radar detector?” I asked.
“And so much more.”
“Illegal?”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“If we get caught after everything else—”
“What will happen? Nothing. You’ve got friends, remember,” said Moe.
“I can’t think who. The CID wanted to know who intervened, but I have no idea. It wasn’t the FBI. They hate me hard right now. Mom said the agents I met were seething.”
“Their own fault. They should’ve known not to test you.” Moe zigzagged through cars with ease and we got up to a good 160 KPH, blowing by everyone through the eighty zones that the Swabians were famous for. Flipping slowpokes. The speed limits opened up after we got out of the Baden-Württemberg region and Moe was truly enjoying himself.
“They’ve gotten me to do things before,” I said.
“When it was in your own best interest.”
“You make me sound totally self-involved.”
“When it comes to psycho serial killers you get to be,” he said.
“I like you,” I said.
He grinned. “Fats knew we’d be a good match. Have you talked to her lately?”
“Texted before it all broke loose this morning. She’s good and getting jazzed about the five-month ultrasound.”
“Ah, yes. Going to find out the sex.”
“Don’t have to,” I said. “She’s sure it’s a girl.”
“She was supposed to be a boy. We Licatas never like to be predictable,” he said. “Check the app. Let’s see how our girl is doing.”
Madison was doing just fine, pointing like an arrow right at Paris, and we settled in for a long drive. I thought it would be boring, but Licatas didn’t do boring, either. We plotted out Uncle Moe’s memoir of Vietnam and I have to say that’s not usually my thing, but I was totally buying that book.
An hour later, we saw Madison’s Kia and Moe pulled up behind her, leaving only a crappy Fiat between us.
“We shouldn’t get so close,” I said.
“She’s never going to spot us,” he said. “Leave the driving to the expert.”
“Snotty.”
“Cupcake.”
“I will fight you,” I said.
“Haven’t we just been talking about hand to hand in Vietnam?”
“Never mind.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Moe.
We drove over the Rhine river and directly into Strasbourg but not the picturesque part with the cathedral. We looped around in a big half-moon following signs for Paris.
“Nothing to see here,” said Moe. “I was hoping to spot the spires at least.”
“We’re not that close,” I said.
“Maybe on the way back.”
“I doubt we’re coming back.”
“No?”
“Everything we need is in Paris.”
He smiled. “I bet a lot of people have thought that.”
“Madison included,” I said.
“Your phone is buzzing.”
I checked the screen and it was Lisa. Even her texts came across as frantic, so I called her.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
“You still have her?”
“Right in front of us.”
She took a ragged breath. “I should’ve come with you. I don’t know what I was thinking about.”
“Your son, for starters,” I said. “It’s fine. I will handle it and Madison will be fine. Did you find the phone?”
“We did. Well, Jake did. It wasn’t until we stripped the bed that Jake noticed some foam sticking out of the mattress. She’d cut a hole in it and the phone was in there.”
“Did you plug it in?” I asked.
“We had to find a cord that fit. It was dead and the service lapsed. I re-upped it about forty-five minutes ago. I should’ve called you before, but the MPs showed up.”
“Everything okay?”
“They want to know where you went?”
“Did you tell them?” I asked.
“Not a chance. What now?”
“I’ll tell my guy and we’ll see what we can see. Thanks, Lisa.”
I was about to hang up, but she asked, “What if he’s violent?”
I glanced at Moe and found I wasn’t worried about that in the slightest. “We can handle Nadelbaum.”
“I’m so worried. He could shoot you or Madison.”
“We could shoot him and frankly that’s more likely,” I said.
“Is it?”
I thought about Richard Costilla as he tumbled backward down the stairs. “Google me,” I said.
“I did. It’s mostly bikini shots.”
“Most of those aren’t me.”
“Really?”
“I can handle myself and Moe can handle anything twice over,” I said.
She took a breath and said, “Okay. Call me right away when something happens.”
I promised her and called Novak immediately, but it wasn’t necessary and I should’ve known that.
“Got it,” he said.
“The burner?”
“The second it got on the Wi-Fi and we’re in luck. He’s both a bastard and a cheap bastard.”
“Still using his same burner?” I asked, giving Moe a thumbs-up.
“It’s not a burner. Well, the first phone he used with Madison wasn’t. Looks like he changed to a burner after he stole the money. That one isn’t accessible, but the first phone is still live.”
“Tell me he’s on it right now.”
“He is not, but I’ve got all the data. The contract is under Sherwood Dankworth.”
“You’re joking,” I said. “That is a terrible name.”
“And fake, but with a sizable history. Sherwood’s been busy. It’s going to take a while to unravel this, but it looks like Nadelbaum, that is his real name, was running some kind of Ponzi scheme and may have taken a very wrong turn.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know how you wouldn’t want to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from Calpurnia Fibonacci?”
“Dude is in trouble,” I said. “Who did he steal from?”
“I’m not positive, but I think it was The Klinefeld Group.”
I gasped. No joking. I really did. Moe glanced over. “Everything okay?”
“I was a trade, a get out of jail free card,” I said.
“Looks like it,” said Novak. “Nadelbaum was an employee of the group, a kind of contract player. He’d been with them for years, working in several capacities, including security and finance. He’s also a licensed pilot under the name Dankworth.”
“He was one of the two men at the airport waiting for me.”
“Reasonable to assume,” said Novak. “I have been poking around in his rancid little life and he’s got some computer skills, but I doubt he was the one who put the plants on Anton’s computer. My money is on his wingman. He’s based in Berlin. No name yet.”
“Do you think Spidermonkey can…steal Lisa’s money back?” I asked.
Novak chuckled. “He can do anything.”
“I love you guys.”
“You should, considering what you’ve put me through,” he said, suddenly very grumpy.
“I am sorry about your head,” I said.
“Not my head. My mother. So far, I’ve been soaked in some kind of medicinal bubble bath, had my hair trimmed, and got half my wardrobe thrown out.”
“Which part of that is bad?”
“All of it. Express sympathy or you may never see that money,” said Novak.
“Your mother is evil and must be stopped,” I said.
“And you will have dinner with her and tell her I’m a fabulous boyfriend.”
“Er…”
“This is still free if you do.”
“I think I’d rather pay,” I said.
He gave me my total cost.
“What time’s dinner?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Swell.”
I hung up and heaved a sigh. “Now I’m having dinner with Novak’s mother.”
“I saw that coming from a mile away,” said Moe.
“You should’ve shared that with me.”
“And miss seeing your face? Never.”
I wadded up my coat and leaned against the door. “You kinda suck.”
“I’m awesome and you know it.”
“Keep dreaming,” I said.
“About Janine,” he said.
“Stop it!”
Moe laughed and put on classical music. “Go to sleep, cupcake. Four hours to go and then it’s back to detecting.”
I closed my eyes, thinking I couldn’t possibly sleep with the image of Moe and Grandma smiling at each other imprinted in my brain, but I did and it was a good thing, too.